Five New DASH Awardees “CIC-START” their Efforts to Improve Health through Data Sharing

Data Across Sectors for Health (DASH), an initiative funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and led by the Illinois Public Health Institute in partnership with the Michigan Public Health Institute, welcomes five new awardees to participate in a 6-month pilot initiative called CIC-START (Community Impact Contracts – Strategic, Timely, Actionable, Replicable, Targeted). DASH CIC-START aims to help local collaborations catalyze their efforts to share and use multi-sector data to improve community health.

Each awardee will receive up to $25,000 to execute a time-limited activity that builds their capacity to engage partners from multiple sectors in planning or implementing an integrated data system or designing health interventions based on shared data. In addition to funding for technical assistance, the awardees will also receive support to participate in All In: Data for Community Health—a learning collaborative of 60+ communities across the country working to merge data from multiple sectors to better understand and address health challenges.

Being part of the All In learning collaborative was a prerequisite for receiving DASH CIC-START funding, and it is the primary mechanism by which awardees will learn from each other’s progress and leverage the experience of a broader network of community collaborations to support their work. Awardees will participate in the All In online community, a virtual platform open to any local collaboration interested in connecting with other professionals engaging in initiatives to share data across sectors. Future DASH CIC-START funding to support technical assistance and peer-to-peer mentoring will be available in 2018 to active All In learning collaborative participants.

“The only way to grow the field of multi-sector data integration is for communities to share what they are learning. That’s where All In comes in—we are providing a way for these early pioneers to spread the impact of their innovations beyond their communities by sharing their lessons and promising practices. We are thrilled to be able to make meaningful connections among the DASH CIC-START awardees and the wider All In network to accelerate learning,” says DASH Co-Director Peter Eckart at the Illinois Public Health Institute.

By giving local collaborations the momentum they need to take their data sharing efforts to the next level, DASH CIC-START aims to accelerate progress towards developing precise, data-driven public health initiatives that are more effective at reducing health disparities.

“Everyone deserves the opportunity to lead a healthy life, but to achieve this vision we need to shift our approach by moving beyond the health care sector and analyzing data on social, economic, and environmental factors that influence health,” says DASH Co-Director Clare Tanner at the Michigan Public Health Institute. “We hope that DASH CIC-START helps local collaborations stake significant steps toward aligning multi-sector partners around data-driven approaches that promote health equity.”

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About the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation

For more than 40 years the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation has worked to improve health and health care. We are working with others to build a national Culture of Health enabling everyone in America to live longer, healthier lives. For more information, visit www.rwjf.org. Follow the Foundation on Twitter at www.rwjf.org/twitter or on Facebook at www.rwjf.org/facebook.

About Data Across Sectors for Health (DASH)

As part of its multi-sector data and information system focus, RWJF launched DASH, which aims to identify barriers, opportunities, promising practices and indicators of progress for multi-sector collaborations to share data for community health improvement. The DASH National Program Office, led by the Illinois Public Health Institute in partnership with the Michigan Public Health Institute and with support from the Foundation, is responsible for leading DASH. To learn more, visit www.DASHconnect.org or follow us on Twitter at @DASH_connect.

About All In: Data for Community Health

All In: Data for Community Health is a nationwide learning collaborative that helps communities build capacity to address the social determinants of health through multi-sector collaborations working to share and use data. Collectively, All In includes over 60 community collaborations from across the country. All In partners include Data Across Sectors for Health, the Community Health Peer Learning Program, the BUILD Health Challenge, the Public Health National Center for Innovations, and the Colorado Health Foundation – Connecting Communities and Care. To learn more, visit www.allindata.org or follow us on Twitter at #AllInData4Health.

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